The Acadamy Award winner for special effects on the film "Gladiator", John Nelson, was head of effects for the "Sorcerer's Apprentice" starring Nicolas Cage now out in theaters.  In a conversation with John, "Entertainment Engineering" learned how he views his work and how he believes the best special effects are created.

According to John Nelson, “What was new and interesting last year is old hat today.", which means that you always have to do something special, something unique.” To this end, John explains that for the 1300-plus shots for the movie “Sorcerer’s Apprentice”, they incorporated a wide variety of approaches to scenes, often hinging on how difficult or how dangerous each scene was to produce on a practical scale.

About half of the shots for the movie involved special effects. We’ve discussed a lot about the use of Autodesk’s Maya software in this magazine, and the Sorcerer’s Apprentice used that software as well. The team also used Pixar’s RenderMan for rendering and software such as Flame and Inferno to produce composites. But these programs are just tools. For some of the shots, John and his team used such tools to add support items to a scene, for others minor fixes or repairs were needed. Then there were the scenes showing the magic; those were the big CGI scenes. But even for the big scenes, John and his team often started with reality rather than animation.

“When we needed a big explosion, John Frasier and his team would create it in a practical scene first. The same went for a scene where we needed to flood a stage with a foot and a half of water.” In these instances, the scenes were produced using as much practical effects as possible. This gave them a strong starting point to then go in and produce image-based rendering of the scene rather than doing the scene in animation only.

This approach enhanced the scenes because the fire or the water was real to begin with. All the motions, the reflections, everything in the final cut begin with real life fire and water. These shots are then taken into the computer for augmentation, where they are enhanced using CGI rather than created in the computer from the start.
“It’s this method that makes a scene stand out in the movie. What the special effects team does is take the real phenomena and make it move in unique, non-realistic ways. That is what makes it fantastic,” John said.

Another scene that used a lot of practical effects was the scene where the rug swallows Nicolas Cage’s character. The practical set used a hole with a swimming pool inside of it. The pool was covered with a membrane. Under the membrane was a lift that slowly sank with the actor standing on it. CGI effects were only used to create the rug and the ripples in the rug that could be cued off the actor’s actions. “Effects come out much better the more we incorporate practical elements,” John said. “We do it real first.”

Besides making the real appear even more fantastic, John explained how he uses nature as a way to make completely fantastic effects appear familiar. He explained that for the more unbelievable effects he would incorporate something natural. If you can make an effect resemble a flock of birds taking off, for example, or a bees’ nest, then viewers can relate to it more easily.

One other thing to note while watching the movie, John explains that in the Sorcerer’s Apprentice there were few digital doubles used. The majority of the special effects created on Maya were scene driven and involved the magic that the actors were creating around them.

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